‘Train US workers, then go home’: Trump administration’s plan for H-1B visa-holders

In US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent’s own words: The US doesn’t want you, it just wants to use you for your expertise. Bessent laid out Donald Trump’s plan for H-1B visa-holders – you go to the US, “train” the American workers and then return back home.

This comes after the US President acknowledged that the Americans do not have the kind of skill that the foreign workers do. It is now the same tune that Bessent has adopted.

Speaking to Fox News host Brian Kilmeade, Bessent said the US workers can’t have the jobs right now because they are not equipped for it. “The President’s point here is we can’t snap our fingers and say ‘you are going to learn how to build ships overnight’. We want to bring the semiconductor industry back to the US. There’s going to be big facilities in Arizona. So, I think the President’s vision here is to bring in overseas skilled workers for up to 7 years, and train the US workers. Then they can go home, the US workers fully take over.”

When the host said the concerns were that foreign workers could displace Americans, Bessent said, “An American can’t have that job. We haven’t built ships in the US for years, we haven’t built semiconductors. So this idea of overseas partners coming in, teaching American workers, and returning home – that’s a home run.”

Trump in a recent interview defended skilled foreign workers even as his administration has made it harder for companies to hire overseas workers, as well as hiked the H-1B visa fee to $100,000. When he was told that the US also has a lot of talented and skilled workers – an often-repeated argument in favour of tightening the H-1B norms – Trump said, “No. You don’t have certain talents. And people have to learn. You can’t take people off, like an unemployment line, and say, ‘I’m going to put you into a factory. We’re going to make missiles.”

The fee hike is only one part of former President Donald Trump's wider immigration crackdown. The crackdown also involved mass deportations and the use of federal troops to support immigration officers in major cities. Business groups have expressed concern that the policy could worsen labour shortages and encourage companies to hire skilled workers from overseas instead.

Additionally, companies are showing less willingness to sponsor work visas for international students. This change affects a traditional route from US universities into the workforce.